Vintage Supplies

Happy New Year…plus 2 weeks!

~ Patty Radish ~ 5 Comments

 

Ahhhh…the best laid plans!

This was how it was supposed to go: Drive over to the eastside, get the house decorated for the Holidays, shop, catch up, celebrate, go home…that was the plan. Now, I knew that the weather might be a little tricky, but I didn’t expect to be snowbound for going on 3 weeks!

Luckily I brought my Advent journal along with a decent variety of embellishments. But, in my infinite wisdom, I packed most of my art supplies to the westside last fall, and now I have next to nothing but Christmas themed embellishments to work with.

I pulled all non-Christmas themed pieces out and have slowly added some new items to the mix. I’ve been toying with the idea of only working in one junk journal at a time and finishing it up before moving on to a new one for a while now, looks like that’s a go!

And since it is still winter, most of the pages in this journal are relevant.

The craft supply shopping in this little town we’re retiring to is extremely limited, so I’ve been sneaking in into craft stores to plump up my stash a bit when out looking for wedding dresses with my daughter. (that’s a whole other story!)

The other side of this story is trying to keep from accumulating more stuff right now. We’re going to have to fit our other house into this much smaller one in a couple of years, and I’m supposed to be downsizing!

Although I’ve managed to be very strategic with my purchases, the problem with organization reared it’s inconvenient head. These are some filing boxes I picked up at the local thrift store I thought might work.

I made little file folders out of cardstock. The larger files hold vintage ephemera and the smaller ones hold store bought ephemera. I haven’t committed to labling them yet, I’m not sure I’ll need to…I just really needed to clean off my desk!Some examples of what I’ve been able to accumilate.

Clockwise from the top: Tim Holtz ephemera from Amazon, mics. paper pad ephemera “Shake It Chic” from Michael’s, stickers from Hobby Lobby, vintage magazine images, and various book images.

So, the plan from here, as soon as the passes clear, is to divide up as much of my stash as possible between both houses. Then put some yummy de-stash packs in my shoppe at a reduced price and share the love!

Also, I will be hosting some giveaways throughout the year to help this plan along, so stay tuned for that and tell your friends!

As always, thank you for stopping by,

Thank you so much for hanging in there with me,

Talk to you soon,

~Patty

Summer Bucket List Documenting

~ Patty Radish ~ 2 Comments

Living in Eastern Washington over the summer has had many advantages. Spending time with my daughter and grandson is the most precious part, but the abundance of farm fresh produce is another. So, one of the things on my summer bucket list was to get some canning done…

…little did I know I would be canning for two weeks! I admit, not as exciting as most bucket lists, but I’m a homebody to the extreme!

My daughter has grape vines in her backyard, so while I’m making grape jelly, she’s making fruit roll-ups in her dehydrator. I didn’t have my tried and true pickle recipe with me, we’ll have to see how these turn out.

Because I wanted to have a small place to document my whirlwind of activity over the last month, I enlisted a project I have had in the back of my mind for quite some time, collaging and journaling on vintage recipe cards. I thought that having little cards decorated and ready to pop a memory or thought onto might be fun…and now I’m obsessed!

This is a perfect project to use up some of those tiny embellishments you might have laying around, these cards are 3″x5″

I made that little “file folder” with the paperclip to keep images that coincide with some of the memories I want to document, it fits perfectly into my little recipe tin. Memories going clockwise are: the gorgeous tomatoes I used for my salsa and marinara, the afghan I started back up, babysitting my grandson overnight, the flowers my daughter brought me on my wedding anniversary, and the macrame project I finally started.

Because I was playing catch-up as per usual, I jotted down all the memories onto some plain old index cards with the date for easy reference, they also fit perfectly into the recipe tin. Hopefully I’ll get caught up and have a pile of cards to journal on soon.

This is the other side of the above cards along with a few things I gathered to decorate with.

I have to admit to you that I have let art journaling and my shoppe consume my life over the years, something that is easy to do. But, I promised myself that I would try to balance my life out a bit more, and get back some of my old interests, like canning, crochet, and sewing. And I’m hoping that downsizing my collage projects might help somewhat, they’re like little postcards to myself.

I’m having too much fun gathering and organizing for this little project, so I’ll have lots to share soon.

Until next time,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Have a great rest of your week,

~Patty

Stitched Art Journal

~ Patty Radish ~ 12 Comments

The other night I was feeling creative, but wasn’t in the mood to get out paper, small bits, and glue. I wanted to do some stitching, but that quilted runner in the corner just wasn’t speaking to me. So…

…I got out my stitchery journal suitcase. It’s been a looooong time since this has seen the light of day!

WARNING!  This is a pretty long (but hopefully fun) blog post, so grab a snack…or a pillow!

 A page I finished quite a while ago, but didn’t share here. I made a lot of copies of old photos onto fabric I’m happy to say, because I’m not sure my new printer will cooperate with fabric. Snippits of worn out stitched thrifty finds are perfect for these fabric journals.

This project is humming right along because I have so many embellishments from other projects I’m repurposing. I do that with my paper art journals too, I love having a stash of ready made decorating bits. The bird is clearly impressed!

Using up an orange lace flower from another project. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I run out of leftover embellishments! (actually, yes I do.)

This little Raggedy Anne has been looking for the right home for years. This is definitely her new forever home.

Are you still hanging in there?

Haven’t lost you yet I hope!

A piece of painted canvas fabric and a hand made fabric button. I’m slightly addicted to making fabric buttons. I even have a Wilhold button making kit now, I’ll share more about in another post.

I have a lot of those travel thread pieces left from my mom’s sewing stash. this is a perfect project to use those up in.

You never know what you’ll find floating around in that old suitcase of mine!

At last, the final photo. Thought I would show you a bit of the planning stage of my next page spread.

Truth be told, I wanted to share about this journal because I know that there are a lot of people that love shopping the sewing and crafting sections of thrift stores as much as I do, and we all need a little inspiration for some fun ways to use them up.

Also, I’ve been thinking about putting some “sewing notion” ephemera packs into my shoppe some day and thought I’d throw out some feelers.

If you made it to the end of this post without needing a nap, I thank you.

Please let me know in comments if you would like to see more posts of my stitchery journals, your feedback is always appreciated!

As always,

Thanks for stopping in,

Have a wonderful weekend,

~Patty

Thrifting, Wilhold Love, with Organization

~ Patty Radish ~ 3 Comments

It has been a long time since I’ve gone a-thriftin’, and boy were the thrifting angels on my shoulder this week!

I found three Wilhold sewing boxes, but only two came home with me. One of them was a repeat, and I only have so much room in my house.

The one in the background is olive green with a clear lid. I will be posting more about it when I find just the right use for it. The clear one at the front is already in use! More on that in a minute.

On to the rest of my finds…

Vintage office supplies. Another super cool, faux wood metal file box, I now own five. I have big plans for these and will be sharing that soon.

Dennison gummy things, various journaling spots, faux wood book ends, and an awesome vintage book on filing, swoon!

Stacks of sweet books for art journal makings, except for the green one, “The Good Earth”. That one will go into my classic movie collection, a great movie with Paul Muni, LOVE!

GAMES! What do you think of those round playing cards! I’m hoping to put together a “Games” ephemera pack sometime soon, I think I’m ready!

I’m always on the lookout for these retro flatware trays, they make great drawer organizers for the bathroom and office. That box with the red lid is a picnic container. A good friend of mine gave me some of those a few years ago and I love them.

Now to the real organization…

I had recently found a good use for the many wooden spools I have collected, organizing my jute and bakers twine. I had all this in about three or four different places. So, I was super tickled to have come up with this…but it gets better!

My new tag making kit!

This is probably the most excited I have been about organizing in a long time!

I make, and use, a lot of tags in my shoppe and art journals. Having everything in one place is amazing. I took what was in about 8 different places, and put them into one! Seriously, they were everywhere.

I may have a few more tags hiding somewhere around the house, but I still have room in there.

Now you know why I love these Wilholds so much, think of all the possibilities. So, if you ever run across one of these in the thrift store, I hope you won’t pass it up. Even if it is missing the trays, they make really cute storage boxes.

I’m still working on my olive green Wilhold, I’ll share as soon as it’s up and running.

Until then,

Thanks for stopping in,

Have a great week,

~Patty

 

 

Sewing My Little Heart Out

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

This year is all about getting our house in order. I had the same intention last year, and I was really quite successful, but there is still so much to be done!

I love having handwork to do in the evening in front of T.V. or listening to an audio book (and ticking WIP’s off my list, win!) so hand quilting small projects is perfect.

img_6144Here are my latest creations. The two at the top were put together and quilted before the Holidays, but needed binding. The runner on the bottom was pinned, but needed the fabric pieces stitched on, then bound.

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You may be wondering why I need so many runners…

Full Disclosure:

I really dislike dusting! Every once in a while, I will take a few runners and throw them in the wash. Or, if they are in a hard to remove kind of place, under a T.V. and such, I will just use a vacuum attachment on them. I don’t know, they just seem to make the furniture look cosy, and I love making them.

img_6151I had originally made this one for my bedroom, but I really, really disliked it there. So now I have one less runner to make for my sewing room. 🙂

img_6152Just so you know, this and the previous runner, were made out of blocks from quilts I had started many moons ago, and had never finished. It’s such a huge relief to use things up and move on!  This one is going into my sewing room too. I have about 8 runners to make for my sewing room alone, but I definitely have all the fabric I need.

Yay for using up supplies!

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This runner is for our dining room table. It’s made by stitching fabric pieces onto linen with vintage wool thread. I wanted to use thick colored thread on this because I wanted the option of flipping it to give my table a more neutral look.

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Here is the wool thread I used. I found several spools of this gorgeousness at the thrift store a few years ago, Love! You can find some on Etsy and Ebay too.

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One of the reasons why I’ve made getting our house in order this year, and last, is because we will be selling this house in a few years, and I want to be ready to de-personalize and neutralize our decor. As you well know by now, I love color, so this is an easy fix!

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This is what it looks like on our table, just the pop of color it needed. I’ll be starting the placemats this week, I’ve chosen a leafy, vintage-y fabric for them, and muslin for the backside. I’m not sure If I will be doing any hand stitching on them yet, we’ll have to see.

In between stitching my heart out, I have been busy with working in my faith devotionals from last year, planning out my year with Lara Casey’s “Goal Setting Planner“, and I signed up for Ali Edwards “One Little Word“, mine is “GRACE”. I will be talking a little more about those things as soon as I’m a bit more organized. I fell off the “No spend” wagon, but hope to jump back on asap! 🙂

So, until next time,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

~Patty